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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3834, Saturday, March 13, 2010, Editor: Mark
What I want to tell you is astoundingly simple if only the
listener is totally absent.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
It was through a skin bag sitting down beneath a pipal tree on a
cushion of kusa grass that the worm Siddhartha died the Great
Death from which arose Sakyamuni Buddha. In the Ariya Pariyesana
sutta the Buddha recounts how after Awakening one of his first
statements to anyone was,
"I go to the city of Kasi
to turn the wheel of the Dhamma.
In a world gone blind,
I will beat the drum of deathlessness."
And yet some forty years later, Sakyamuni Buddha died with a
torrent of diarrhea from eating spoiled pork.
What is this deathlessness, then? Did just the bodymind die? Did
Sakyamuni go somewhere else? No. Sakyamuni was never any place at
all. He was already beyond reference point, already blown out,
already dissolved into nirvana. Did Joshu Dainen roshi die or
just the bodymind? Roshi was not anywhere at all. He did not go
anywhere. What was called Yasuda Joshu Dainen daiosho or called
Sakyamuni Buddha were joyful activities of Awakening enacted
through bodyminds that were opened into the Activity of the Aware
Space that they arose within. They were called what they were
called for convenience. Perhaps the Buddha should have had
embroidered on his robe "Ceci n'est pas une Bouddha."
Sakyamuni Buddha was just a painted Buddha, not the real Buddha.
The real Buddha is not just Sakyamuni Buddha. It is here as you.
- Ven. Jimyno Roshi, posted to DailyDharma
If you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into
the river of life then life has an astonishing way of taking care
of you, because then there is no taking care on your part.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti, posted to The_Now2
A man invited Nasrudin to go hunting with him, but mounted him on
a horse which was too slow. The Mulla said nothing. Soon the hunt
outpaced him and was out of sight. It began to rain heavily, and
there was no shelter. All the members of the hunt got soaked
through. Nasrudin, however, as soon as the rain started, took off
all his clothes and folded them. Then he sat down on the pile. As
soon as the rain stopped, he dressed himself and went back to his
host's house for lunch. Nobody could work out why he was dry.
With all the speed of their horses they had not been able to
reach shelter on that plain.
"It was the horse you gave me," said Nasrudin.
The next day he was given a fast horse and his host took the slow
one. Rain fell again. The horse was so slow that the host got
wetter than ever, riding at a snail's pace to his house. Nasrudin
carried out the same procedure as before. When he got back to the
house he was dry.
"It is all your fault!" shouted the host. "You
made me ride this terrible horse."
"Perhaps," said Nasrudin, "you did not contribute
anything of your own to the problem of keeping dry."
- as collected by Idries Shah, posted to allspirit
Attachment is the strongest block to realization.
- Neem Karoli Baba, posted to AlongTheWay
When you stop pretending and fall asleep, you withdraw the entire
world into your heart just like the spider withdraws its web into
its own body.
Then, when you awaken again, you spontaneously recreate the
web-of-life and get quickly ensnared by the irresistible
seductiveness of your own reflection.
The fear-and-desire diversions that immediately arise cleverly
distract you from remembering the Truth of who you really are.
But then, of course, you're better able to play out into the
wonders of your wonderland.
Sleeping again, though, you once more become the destroyer of
worlds.
- Chuck Hillig, posted to Distillation
You are undoubtedly here, present. The only commonality of a
lifetime of experience has been this always-here-ness, this
presence. Everything else has changed, the body, the thoughts,
the feelings, emotions, sensations... What-you-are is just simply
HERE. There isn't anything else to say about it. It cannot be
described, because it's not objective like the rest of it, like
all experiences. It isn't an experience. It's just your presence.
It's just the present activity of knowing. It's going on right
now. It's here. It's unmistakably and obviously here. It's how
the world is known. It's how the body is known. It's how thoughts
are known.
It's how anger, frustration, sadness, and every other feeling or
emotion is known. It's not objective. It's not an experience.
It's the experiencING. The knowing. Can you deny that? Are you
ever without it? Does it leave? Does it change? Does it come and
go? No. It does not. It's not difficult. It doesn't require
searching. It's that IN WHICH the search takes place, the idea of
seeker takes place. It's not personal - the personal is the
quality of the body, of thoughts. You are THAT which knows the
personal. It's not individual - the individual is appearance -
objective - quantifiable, measurable, changing. It's just this
present knowing - this subjective "I"-ness. It's always
here. You are looking FOR your true Self, when all the while you
are already looking FROM your true Self. Just notice.
- Randall Friend, posted to AlongTheWay